Love being Alive

I was thinking about a former student who now works in Omaha. One of his teams at his new school is getting cut and it dawned on me that he wasn’t taking my advice.

When our students had something big they had to do for work or school, I liked to say, “Don’t suck.” Sure, it comes off a little bitter, but it’s me. And I am a little bitter.

Plus it’s way better than saying something unuseful like “Good luck.” That’s so arbitrary because, you know what? If I’m going to do my best and try my hardest, then why the hell would luck be a part of it? It wouldn’t. Luck has nothing to do with being good, but not sucking, well, that’s exactly the opposite of sucking, which must be good. So trying to not suck makes more sense than being arbitrarily full of luck.

I was thinking this today in the shower because I thought maybe I should have “Don’t suck” engraved on my headstone when I die. But then again, it came to me that that’s stupid because I’m going to be cremated and won’t have a headstone, although if I did, that’d be what I’d pick to tell the world for eternity.

And when I’m cremated I expect my friends to have party. Actually, even while I’m alive, they should have parties and rejoice that I’m alive. And we’ll all drink. Then when I’m dead, they can drink for me and we’ll all be happy. Except I’ll be dead. And while they’re drinking at my wake, they’ll be listening to Pearl Jam. Because that’s what I’ll expect that they’ll listen to, especially Alive, which should be played 67 times in a row.

[Sidenote: my personal record for playing this song consecutively is 143 on New Year’s Eve 1992 at the Beer Garden in Rock Island, Ill.; this account can be verified by multiple sources.]

In fact, this is what I hope everyone is feeling like at my wake — fucked up, loving life and having one helluva good time. It should look a lot like these videos below, which form the complete set from Pearl Jam’s show at Lollapolooza II in Alpine Valley in 1992.

It’s all the songs they did on stage before Soundgarden and after Jesus and the Mary Chain. And it was before Eddie and Chris Cornell got together and played as Temple of the Dog on the circus sidestage, which, when they played Hunger Strike, it pretty much made my head explode. It was incredible.

And it’s last week’s Tuesday Memories… as told on late Sunday night.

This was potentially the seminal day of my life.

In a sense it was magical, but mainly because it’s almost all myth. There is little that is proven fact about what happened other than I was there and I was drunk. Nobody who knows what happened to me on this day is both 1) alive and b) physically capable of remembering anything more than this.

It was my 21st birthday and we had stayed out at the bars and strip clubs till 4 a.m. This was the night that gave a whole new meaning to Going Commando.

[Sidenote: When you’re going out to strip clubs, and you even remotely think you might end up on stage, going ‘free ride’ is not recommended. I added that to ‘lesson learned’ category for the next time I’d end up on stage. But it made for a funny-assed (pun intended) moment, that’s for sure.]

At 6:30 a.m. my buddies from College came from Chicago and picked us up. My other buddy came up the night before and went with us bar-hopping.

As I said, this was 1992, so we piled into buddies’ cool-ass Amigo and cruised to Alpine Valley, Wis. Parked by 8 a.m., we opened the Jagermeister at 8:02 a.m. and roamed the parking lots till 11 a.m. when the gates opened. During this time we may or may not have been 1) offered 12 illicit drugs in exchange for our Jager, three of which I am not sure I had ever heard of and considering my family’s history and the fact I grew up in the Park, that’s amazing, 2) stumbled upon a mini cult that may or may not have “drank the cool-aid” and 3) fell into a fire pit. Yes, it was lit.

Once the gates opened, we traded our remaining three shots of Jager — it was that precious of a commodity in my world and I had held out, not giving up any for that other stuff. Even to this point I didn’t want to get rid of it, but was only convinced to do so because the three chicks gave us the shirts off their backs for them. Win.

Inside, well, that’s more of a blur.

I think that beers by the second stage were $4 and by the main stage and concession stands were $6. And I had $12 to may name. And it was Noon and the last band, Red Hot Chili Peppers, was scheduled to hit the stage about 11 p.m.

So, it was barter time, and my only barter tool was daring random strangers I could do stupid acts and getting them to buy me beer. Luckily I’ve got a master’s degree in that, as I was drunk till the rain started falling halfway through the Ministry show right before the Chili Peppers.

By the time Pearl Jam hit the stage mid-afternoon, I had already passed out but amazingly I woke up at the right time, right as they fired up for the first song of the day, ‘Why go.’

I was in what I would imagine to be heaven. Fat, drunk and stupid may not be any way to go through college but it sure as hell was perfect for this day.

So, that’s about it for what I remember. It was sun, beer, chicks, music. Fucking incredible is what it was and while I may be getting a lot older way quicker than I want, it’s memories like that day that will keep me young forever.

That and beer.

[Side note: I highly recommend watching all these videos. Even if you don’t like Pearl Jam, it’s still pretty cool for a couple reasons. First, it’s an amazing concert. Second, it’s more amazing that someone actually had a video camera and filmed it and then transferred it to digital format to put on YouTube. Third, it’s even more incredible that there were more than one camera as there are definitely a couple different people shooting this. And fourth, I was there, so it had to be a cool event and must be worth watching now.]

[And lastly, if you only watch one video, watch ‘Porch’ and more specifically watch from 1:45 to 6:45. When Eddie climbs to the top of the shelter roof and then gets lowered back down on the crane, where he lands in the middle of all the people is a cement pad, which is where I was passed out till the show started. He literally came down 20 feet from where I was camped out and having one of if not the best weekends of my life. Just look close and you might see me. I’m the one in the black shirt with a mullet. Ha.]

Happy 21st birthday memories to me.

Lollapalooza II, Alpine Valley, Wis.
August 29, 1992

Why Go